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<\/a>Every time there\u2019s a widely publicized shooting or other act of violence, we blame it on mental illness, at least in part. Why do we do that? Is it correct? Is it helpful? In the week since the Orlando shooting, I\u2019ve been wondering about mental illness.<\/p>\nI\u2019m not a psychologist or a psychiatrist. I can\u2019t make diagnoses and classifications \u2013 I can\u2019t speak the lingo. But I\u2019ve done a fair bit of relevant reading over the years, and I pay attention to people. In any case, I\u2019m not writing as a professional analyst of people who may or may not be mentally ill. I\u2019m writing to ask the rest of us to think about what it means when we assume someone who does something terrible is mentally ill, particularly considering the vast majority of people who are mentally ill are not violent or dangerous in any way.<\/p>\n
Mental illness is many things<\/strong><\/p>\n The National Alliance on Mental Illness<\/a> says<\/p>\n A mental illness is a condition that impacts a person\u2019s thinking, feeling or mood and may affect his or her ability to relate to others and function on a daily basis. Each person will have different experiences, even people with the same diagnosis.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s a pretty broad definition \u2013 mental illness is a lot of different things. And it\u2019s not totally dependent on the person in question \u2013 the definition speaks of the \u201cability to relate to others and function.\u201d Sometimes you can\u2019t relate to others because the others in your life are toxic. Sometimes you can\u2019t function in society because society makes unreasonable assumptions and demands. Jiddu Krishnamurti said \u201cIt is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.\u201d Another quote of recent but uncertain origin says \u201cbefore you self-diagnose yourself with depression, first make sure that you are not simply surrounded by assholes.\u201d<\/p>\n But we know from observation if not from first-hand experience that mental illness is a real thing. Sometimes it\u2019s caused by a variation in brain chemistry. That\u2019s a medical cause that usually calls for medical treatment. That\u2019s why I get so irritated with people who claim anti-depressants and similar drugs are just capitalist schemes to make money. In total our society is overmedicated, and drug companies\u2019 emphasis on profits over people is obscene. None of that changes the fact that people who have chemical imbalances can be helped by medication.<\/p>\n So in the great question of nature vs. nurture, the cause of mental illness is sometimes one, sometimes the other, and sometimes both.<\/p>\n Some people who commit terrible crimes are clearly mentally ill by any definition or standard. But again, mental illness isn\u2019t one thing. It\u2019s many different conditions that many different people have to many different degrees. Saying \u201che did something terrible so he must be mentally ill\u201d doesn\u2019t tell us much.<\/p>\n I find it interesting that people who carry out mass murders by themselves are assumed to be mentally ill, while people who carry out mass murders in groups are not. I\u2019m not sure what that means, but it means something.<\/p>\n Calling mass murder \u201cmental illness\u201d gives us a simple explanation for something that is usually anything but simple. Based on the statements of the people who knew him, I think it\u2019s likely the Orlando shooter was mentally ill, to one degree or another. But it\u2019s pretty clear homophobia was the big driver. So was easy access to guns. So was his attraction to a violent perversion of Islam. So were probably a dozen other things we haven\u2019t even heard about. It\u2019s never just one thing \u2013 it\u2019s always complicated. And when we oversimplify complicated issues, we\u2019re always wrong.<\/p>\n Othering<\/strong><\/p>\n Labeling people who do horrible things as mentally ill allows us to separate ourselves from them. It lets us tell ourselves \u201cthere must be something wrong with him \u2013 I would never do that.\u201d But when we look at history, we realize we aren\u2019t so different after all. The Stanford Prison Experiment<\/a>. Abu Ghraib<\/a>. The ordinary Germans of the 1930s and 40s who went along with Hitler and worked in death camps. Yes, these are examples of groups, not individuals \u2013 the point is that it doesn\u2019t take much for ordinary people to be convinced to do horrible things. Some are just able to get there on their own.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve spent a fair amount of time exploring the darker corners of my soul. I can\u2019t see any way, short of a personality-warping brain injury, that I could ever walk into a nightclub and start shooting people at random. I can\u2019t even see myself shooting up the Westboro Baptist Church. But if someone intentionally harmed someone I love? I can see myself doing some things that are properly illegal and not in alignment with my values. I suspect that will remain a hypothetical situation, and I pray it always does. But the potential for doing something that would cause someone to say \u201che must have been mentally ill\u201d? Yeah, that\u2019s in me.<\/p>\n It\u2019s in you too. The real miracle is that it doesn\u2019t come out more often than it does.<\/p>\n Some people say we blame everything on mental illness because we don\u2019t believe in evil any more. There\u2019s some truth to that. But while evil as a force may or may not exist, a diagnosis of evil was often used in the same way we use a diagnosis of mental illness \u2013 as a way of distancing ourselves from someone who has done something horrible. At least we aren\u2019t burning mentally ill people at the stake. But we know the capacity for evil exists in all of us, and the othering we do with those who do great evil is mostly a lie for our own comfort.<\/p>\n What would a world without mental illness look like? <\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019d all like to see an end to depression, to anxiety, and to conditions that cause young men (it\u2019s almost always young men) to pick up a gun when they feel wronged. But remember that mental illness isn\u2019t cancer or the flu \u2013 it\u2019s not some invader that needs to be wiped out and then everything goes back to normal. With mental health, \u201cnormal\u201d is an arbitrary standard defined by mainstream society \u2013 \u201cmental illness\u201d is a variation from that standard.<\/p>\n How much variation would we tolerate? Who gets to decide? What happens when no one varies from \u201cnormal\u201d anymore? We all know someone who\u2019s \u201codd\u201d or \u201ca bit off\u201d who does something really really well \u2013 that\u2019s almost a stereotype of a genius. Many brilliant artists struggle with mental illness \u2013 how much would we lose if we medicated them out of existence? If there was no variation in mental states, would we have any shamans, spirit workers, or God-speakers?<\/p>\n I was in counseling for depression for a while in my 20s. I remember arguing with the counselor \u201cI don\u2019t want you to make me feel good about the way things are, I want you to teach me how to make things better!\u201d At that point in my life, I still thought \u201cmake things better\u201d meant \u201cmake more money.\u201d I\u2019ve written extensively about my spiritual journey on this blog, so I won\u2019t go into detail here. But while my struggle with actual depression was relatively short, I didn\u2019t start feeling good until I accepted that what I really wanted wasn\u2019t financial, it was spiritual\u2026 but that wasn\u2019t what our mainstream society told me I was supposed to want.<\/p>\n I have mildly autistic friends who say \u201cI don\u2019t want a cure, I want you to accept me as I am.\u201d<\/p>\n Less conformity, more respect<\/strong><\/p>\n What if the Orlando shooter had grown up in a society that understood and accepted that different people have different sexual orientations, and different is good? There is evidence he was struggling with his own same sex attraction \u2013 what if his culture (his American culture \u2013 he was born and lived his entire life in the US) and his religion had affirmed that as OK? We need to reduce our demands for conformity.<\/p>\n What if we taught young men that while it\u2019s perfectly normal to be attracted to women, the only way they have a right to approach women is the same way they approach men:\u00a0 as people and as individuals who like what they like and want what they want. What if we taught young men to value women\u2019s sovereignty and boundaries more than their potential to be a sex partner<\/a>? We need to increase our respect for personal boundaries.<\/p>\n And then since we wouldn\u2019t be describing ordinary human behavior as mental illness, we could do a better job of identifying and treating real medical conditions and helping those who have been harmed by toxic individuals and circumstances (which, sadly, we will never completely eliminate).<\/p>\n<\/a>Sometimes mental illness is caused by trauma. Being raised by an abusive parent, living with violence (whether domestic, military, criminal, or otherwise), living in extreme poverty or under great stress can cause mental illness. Sometimes it\u2019s caused by culture, particularly if you live in a culture that\u2019s at odds with your core values and identity.<\/p>\n<\/a>I believe our (you, me, other ordinary people \u2013 not necessarily psychologists, but maybe them too) definition of mental illness is far too broad, and our understanding of ordinary\u00a0human emotions and behavior is far too narrow. Our mainstream society has far too many expectations for conformity and not nearly enough respect for personal boundaries.<\/p>\n